No Country for Old Gnomes

by Kevin Hearne

  We must wait while the sheep person and the dwarf exit the foule town at the proper gate with Faucon and the robotte, Gerd explained, and Offi realized he was getting comfortable with a gryphon speaking in his head. I will sing you the säggä of my people as you enjoy the foine sights of the blü sky.

  She cleared her throat and let loose with a series of noises that sounded like a dying mule murdering a violin. Offi’s eyes met Kirsi’s, and she gave an exaggerated smile, which he tried to mirror. The gryphon was probably not interested in constructive criticism. And perhaps, where she came from, it was a very beautiful thing to murder a violin.

  After such a long time that Offi contemplated wriggling and falling to his death to end the aural onslaught, Gerd gave a final gurgle and briefly purred.

  Perhaps now you will understand me better, she said.

  “Thank you, I think I definitely do,” Kirsi said brightly. “Hey, isn’t that them?”

  Far down below—farther than Offi really cared to think about—the ovitaur and the dwarf sat on a log; Faucon paced around Piini in annoyance while glancing up at Gerd and motioning for her to land. Whenever Offi saw the halfling, he felt a rush of deep-seated hatred. It was strange to have one’s head understand something completely and one’s heart stubbornly continue to protest it. As Gerd gently circled down to the ground, Offi couldn’t help it. He had to ask Kirsi.

  “The halfling. Do you trust him?” he whispered.

  Before Kirsi could answer, Gerd broke in.

  I have made it clear: Faucon Pooternoob is above reproach. It is not wise to challenge gryphones. We do not lie, but we do take offense at any suggestion that we do.

  Talons briefly squeezed his middle in warning, making his intestines scream.

  “Sounds like we have no choice but to trust him,” Kirsi said, to which Offi merely grunted in pain.

  But as the gryphon delicately placed him on the ground and Offi straightened his cardigan, he glared at the halfling. The halfling, in turn, glared at him. Faucon didn’t appear to be entirely back to normal and his eyes were still bloodshot, but he seemed to share the same deep-seated antipathy that Offi felt.

  “So we’re all back together!” Båggi enthused, completely missing the tension. “Plus one! Look! I found a bumblebee! Her name is Queen Buzzabeth!”

  True enough, the dwarf had a red string tied around his finger, and at the other end of the string was a fat striped bumblebee, lazily flying in circles, the string tenderly tied in a nice bow around her abdomen. The bee, Offi noted, seemed pretty happy about the whole thing, and he wondered how Båggi had gotten the bee to submit to being leashed like that. Gerd wandered off into a nearby stand of trees to investigate some chittering noises and loudly urinate on something while purring.

  “So what now?”

  Offi asked the question, but everybody looked at Kirsi.

  “Nothing’s changed. We go to the Great Library.”

  Agape was digging a hole in the turf with a hoof and failed to meet anyone’s eyes. “So you all waaant to go with me? Still? After all that? Threatened by a human, caaarried into the sky, running through the streets like criminals? We’ve only been at this quest for an hour, and it’s a mess.”

  “A mess?” Båggi laughed. “It’s been very merry indeed! And I found a bee!”

  Gerd trotted out from the trees with blood and viscera dripping from her beak. Very merry, she agreed. The squirrels here are tastee and plentiful.

  “Just…just don’t come along if you’re going to give up later on,” Agape said, her voice a raspy whisper. “If aaanyone’s going to drop off, do it now.”

  “But why would we drop off?” Kirsi asked. “We want to see the Great Library as much as you do. It could save our people. Our entire species.”

  “And the laws—the laws written down,” Faucon said, reverence in his voice. “Think of them! Why, there could be accords. Amendments.” His eyes closed, and he gave a little shiver of ecstasy. “There could be codifying.”

  “I was told to find a quest, and this looks like the quest for me.” Båggi beamed, and Queen Buzzabeth executed a dizzying spiral of glee, seemingly in agreement.

  “Yeah!” Offi added, punching the air with one fist in a jaunty manner and feeling sure that Onni would have said something similar at that particular moment.

  Agape sighed, and she looked so sad that Båggi offered her an embroidered handkerchief, this one sporting a smiling pine tree.

  “I don’t know, you guys. Maybe we should forget it aaand Piini and I will just keep doing what we’ve always done. Moving around, all that. You guys might get hurt, or bored, or…I don’t know. I just have a baaad feeling about this.”

  “No.”

  Everyone looked to Faucon as he stepped forward and solemnly knelt before Agape.

  “I will protect you as we journey to the Great Library. You have my sword.”

  Kirsi stepped forward to kneel, plucking a hair and tying it into an intricate design. “And my cursed bows.”

  Båggi trotted up and knelt, offering his picnic basket. “And my snacks!”

  Gerd gave an elegant bow, and Offi was the only one still standing. He quickly took a knee, feeling rather overwhelmed.

  “Yeah. I would…” Offi grasped for something significant to offer, to prove his commitment to the quest. “…shave my beard if it would help.”

  For a long moment, it felt as if the clearing was bathed in sunlight and magic, as if something very grand and important was happening. Then Gerd jumped on a wild ferret, crunched its spine, and swallowed it before burping, and the moment was over.

  “So let’s just go now,” Agape said.

  A magnificent quest has begun, Gerd agreed. The gryphon took a single step before the sound of extraordinary flatus emanated from her noble flanks. That wasn’t me, Gerd said, her eyes darting among them. That was the squirrels. In the trees.

  No one argued with her, but Offi privately noted that Gerd lied about at least one thing, and she certainly put the ick in majestic.

  “Look, I’m not saying all trees, okay, but, yeah, most trees, if you give them opposable thumbs and a hatchet, they’re going to be out there cutting lumberjacks down first, know what I mean? Get a load of those Perilous Poplars outside of Songlen. They just eat people, am I right?”

  —PERRY WYNKKEL, owner of the Grakkel lumber mill, shortly before a tragic hatchet accident

  So they weren’t leaving, Agape thought.

  They were staying.

  They were actually choosing to stay with her.

  Despite the danger, the uncertainty, and yet more danger, these complete strangers claimed they were going to go with her on her life’s quest—even more, they had pledged to do so. Agape had spent her entire childhood believing that the destiny of a Vartija could only be solitary and lonely—unless, perhaps, she managed to stumble upon another ovitaur who didn’t mind an anxiety-filled life on the run that could only end in the horrors of childbirth and perhaps a singed caftan, if she were lucky. Her parents had drilled into her the truth of her future: Trust no one. Stay nowhere more than three nights. Set up traps. Don’t light campfires. Remain miserable. It’s your duty.

  But now she wasn’t solitary. She wasn’t lonely. She almost felt as if she could trust…

  Almost.

  And she was, for once, following Piini Automaatti instead of trudging ahead of him, and it was the strangest thing: Normally she expected that his aged gears and crusted cogs would grow so decrepit that he would just stop in place at any moment, one foot forward and one foot back, frozen in time. But now, leading the way to the Great Library, the machine had begun loosening up, his arms swinging with purpose and his stride so long that the gnomes were going to have trouble keeping pace. Agape would’ve bet good money that the gryphon was going to eat those gnomes, who looked a little like cupca
kes brought to life and plunked into cardigans. But yet again, she’d been wrong.

  They set off immediately, as time suddenly meant something. Every moment they weren’t traveling was a moment that the halflings’ depredations against the gnomes would continue, a moment that the law was letting the people down. The way Onni and Kirsi looked at Faucon reflected how Agape felt inside when she thought about trusting anyone: fearful and angry yet foolishly hopeful at the same time, as if her guts were made of irascible hummingbirds. And yet no one complained or argued. The poor gnomes jogged to keep up, and Båggi bounced along, singing to Queen Buzzabeth, and the gryphon alternated soaring gracefully with messily disemboweling adorable forest creatures and choking them down. Agape had always longed to see a magical gryphon, but she’d never imagined they were quite so gross.

  Not that she was going to ever let Gerd know she was gross, which is why it was a good thing the gryphon’s ability to project thoughts only went one way.

  The terrain here was familiar, and Agape remembered touring this area outside the border of Borix when she’d been around nine. The humans built dreary cities surrounded by walls that seemed to keep them in more than keeping anyone out, as everyone else generally had better places to be. But near the borders of the Skyr, she recalled, the gnomes had taken precautions against the lack of foodstuffs caused by the humans’ poor farming practices and tendency to overhunt the wilderness. They had hidden gnomeholes all across the land with caches of supplies and emergency cardigans. Along well-traveled roads, these wee burrows of safety were marked with flagpoles covered in Alphagnomeric script, which provided instructions on how to find the refuge nearby. Most of the “tall folk” could not read them, but Agape’s family could, and she had fond memories of a cheese-stuffed belly. She spotted one such pole on the road leading north to Pavaasik and pointed it out to the others.

  “We caaan stock up for our journey nearby.”

  Onni blinked. “You can read that?”

  She raised a challenging eyebrow. “Sure.”

  “Okay, we’ll let you find the gnomehole, then,” he said with a shrug, clearly daring her to prove it. She shrugged back but said nothing as she read the instructions and found the hole fifty gnomeric paces off the road to the northeast by tugging on a particularly cheerful daisy until a section of turf pulled up, revealing a hatch.

  “I didn’t know sheeple could read Alphagnomeric script,” Kirsi said.

  Agape bristled. “Some can. And I prefer shaetyr or ovitaur, if you don’t mind.”

  Kirsi looked abashed. “Oh, I do beg your pardon. Thank you for telling me. I’ll remember.”

  “Someone called me a doof last week,” Båggi said, cheerfully trying to dispel the awkwardness. “An old lady I met on the road. And I told her, It’s pronounced as dwarf, my lady, and she smacked me with a cane and told me the wharf was in the other direction, ha ha!”

  But Agape wanted food more than fellow feeling. The cache contained water, wine, crackers, honey, dried cured meats, dried fruits, and wheels of hard cheese, which Onni and Kirsi handed up to the others. Faucon was overjoyed to find a package of yogurt-covered cranberries, and all agreed he needed them to build up his strength and prevent bladder issues. There was a ledger inside, and Kirsi signed it so that her family would be billed for the goods—a practice that Agape’s family had never followed. She imagined they owed the gnomes quite a bit by now, and it occurred to her that their life on the run had been a rather selfish one. All taking. No giving. She put a protective and guilty hand on her pack, just thinking about it.

  Although Agape’s parents had mostly kept to rural areas—farms were easy to plunder or beg at and enjoyed fewer predators than actual wilderness—they did occasionally have reason to go into a city and have a real bath or a meal or pick up some supplies. Agape’s mother was usually able to bring in some money with her carved-wood jewelry, and the entire family would whittle around the unlit campfire every afternoon, creating things they could sell in the cities. Her father crafted fancy wooden salad tongs out of soft woods that he polished and oiled, but Agape enjoyed making tiny animals and people that she saw during her travels, endowing each with a little tuft of her own wool and carving a title and her initials onto their bellies. She was currently working on a round little gnome and was planning on giving it a wild and literally woolly beard.

  When they came upon a small river, the sun was mid-sink, turning the frothing green water into an array of beautiful colors. Piini assured Agape that he could cross it easily and she was all ready to go, but as soon as the gnomes caught up with the group, they fell down on the ground, panting.

  “I’ve never been this tired in my entire life,” Kirsi moaned.

  “My blisters have blisters,” Onni added. “My calves are screaming. My knees are swollen. Everything hurts!”

  “Well, let’s just cross the river, and—”

  “No!” the gnomes shouted in unison.

  The halfling and the dwarf, both of around the same height, stared at them in surprise.

  “I have never heard a gnome yell before,” Faucon said.

  “Yeah, well, you’ve probably not ever met a gnome who walked this far before,” Kirsi spat. “We are a smöl people of dainty legs and we’re not known for cross-country expeditions. You do understand that for every step you take, I have to take three steps just to keep up?”

  Faucon raised a tufty eyebrow at Kirsi. Everyone was silent, waiting to see what kind of ancient battle between their two species would rage.

  But the halfling merely bowed his head. “You make an excellent point. I had not considered that, and I feel like an oblivious dodunk for not thinking of it. An unobservant mumchance. My apologies. As it happens, my feet are also in need of rest. I will admit that a nice foot bath, followed by a communal foot rub with penetrating unguents, would not be unwelcome.”

  Kirsi sighed in relief. “Yeah. A nice soak would be terrific.”

  “Did he just suggest we all rub each other’s feet?” Agape muttered to Båggi. “Because no thanks. I don’t want to lace my fingers betwixt any of your toes, nor do I want you exploring the crevaaasses of my underhooves.”

  But that was apparently not what Faucon had suggested at all. He reached into his portmanteau, and the gnomes flinched, expecting firebombs. Instead, he pulled out a flat rectangle he called an Amazing Basin. After a few adjustments, it had become a box, which he filled with river water. The halfling worked with concentration and delicacy, adding a variety of soaps and oils from his bag to the water. Then he sat on the log, carefully removed his toe ring, and dipped his large, hairy feet into the basin, wriggling his broad toes. His grin, when it appeared, was wider and more genuine than Agape could ever have guessed. The halfling was such a serious sort, not at all like the halflings her family had encountered on their perambulations. No, those halflings had been dirty and talked out the sides of their mouths, smiling and laying on the charm, offering outrageous deals if someone would just follow them into lightless alleys to complete the transaction.

  Everyone else but Gerd was waiting for their turn to enjoy the basin, but Agape had the hardy hooves of a sheep and had spent her entire life walking, often from dawn until dusk, stopping only to forage for edibles along the path. No one else had even begun the work of making camp. Twigs and stones were everywhere, and Båggi had carelessly deposited his picnic basket and mead cask rather close to an anthill. No one was collecting wood for the campfire, lit or unlit: Perhaps, just this once, with the protection afforded by the group, she could enjoy actual flames. Giving a deep and sheepish snort, Agape set to making a camp, finding satisfaction in the repetitive and familiar motions. Piini followed behind her at a well-programmed distance, his nearness a pleasant comfort.

  As she was dragging logs around the prospective fire, Båggi was listening to his bee buzz in a rather urgent manner.

  “Oh, this is a
good spot, here by the river? Very well, then. Please land on that fallen log and I’ll untie the string.” The bee obliged and Agape watched, slack-jawed, as Båggi untied it and waved goodbye when the fuzzy body buzzed off. “Farewell, Queen Buzzabeth! I hope your new hive is prosperous and healthy.”

  “You can really talk to bees?”

  Båggi nodded, making his chin jiggle enthusiastically. “Oh, my, yes! Anybody can talk to bees. It’s making yourself understood that’s the real trick, and most dwarves know all about that.”

  “How?”

  “Well, we all get the talk from our parents when we’re young.” Båggi looked at her expectantly and continued when she merely raised her eyebrows. “You know. The one about the bees and the bees?”

  “You mean the birds aaand the bees?”

  “No, the bees and the bees.” Båggi wrinkled his nose in confusion. “Birds and bees? Who ever heard of such nonsense? They’re all the wrong sizes for that sort of thing.” His eyes abruptly widened, and he hurried to assure her. “Not that never having heard of something is bad. There’s nothing wrong with not knowing something, and there is always the chance to know it, ha ha! You have such differing talents and skills. I’m so impressed that you can read Alphagnomeric. What else can you do?”

  She considered the question, not sure how much to share. “I can whittle a piece of wood into most anything. We haaad to do something with all the kindling we never lit up.”

  “If you never lit your fires, what did you do for light?”

  “We used fairy laaanterns with consenting fairies. Usually it’s easy to trade them a night of light in a laaantern for a bit of milk and honey.”

  “Milk? Do you…make milk?”

  Agape bleated in surprise and crossed her arms over her chest. “No! I meant cow’s milk or goat’s milk from local farms!”

  Båggi’s eyes squeezed shut, and his cheeks went red as strawberries, and he bonked himself a couple of times on the head with his cudgel. “I’m sorry! There is so much I don’t know. I can recite for you the epics of my people and prepare a salve for your wounds or a tonic for your ailments; I can talk to bees and brew delicious mead; but I know so little about other peoples that I constantly give offense. Please forgive me, Agape. You are the only shaetyr I have ever met, and I hope I am not giving you a poor opinion of dwarves.”